An Explanation for the Peasants of What the Social-Democrats Want

2. What Do the Social-Democrats Want?

TheRussian Social-Democrats are first and foremost striving to win
political liberty. They need political liberty in order to unite
all the Russian workers extensively and openly in the struggle for a new
and better socialist order of society.

Whatis political liberty?

Tounderstand this the peasant should first compare his present state of
freedom with serfdom. Under the serf-owning system the peasant could not
marry without the land lord’s permission. Today the peasant is free to
marry without anyone’s permission. Under the serf-owning system the
peasant had unfailingly to work for his landlord on days fixed by the
latter’s bailiff. Today the peasant is free to decide which employer to
work for, on which days, and for what pay. Under the serf-owning system
the peasant could not leave his village without the landlord’s per
mission. Today the peasant is free to go wherever he pleases—if the
mir allows him to go, if he is not in arrears with his taxes, if
he can get a passport, and if the governor or the police chief does not
forbid his changing residence. Thus, even today the peasant is not quite
free to go where he pleases; he does not enjoy complete freedom of
movement; the peasant is still a semi-serf. Later on we shall explain in
detail why the Russian peasant is still a semi-serf and what he must do to
escape from this condition.

Underthe serf-owning system the peasant had no right to acquire property
without the landlord’s permission; he could not buy land. Today the
peasant is free to acquire any kind of property (but even today he is not
quite free to leave the mir; he is not quite free to dispose of
his land as he pleases). Under the serf-owning system the peasant could be
flogged by order of the landlord. Today the peas ant cannot be flogged by
order of the landlord, although he is still liable to corporal punishment.

Thisfreedom is called civil liberty—freedom in family
matters, in private matters, in matters concerning property. The peasant
and the worker are free (although not quite) to arrange their family life
and their private affairs, to dispose of their labour (choose their
employer) and their property.

Butneither the Russian workers nor the Russian people as. a whole are yet
free to arrange their public affairs. The people as a whole are
the serfs of the government officials, just as the peasants were the serfs
of the landlords. The Russian people have no right to choose their
officials, no right to elect representatives to legislate for the whole
country. The Russian people have not even the right to arrange meetings
for the discussion of state affairs. We dare not even print
newspapers or books, and dare not even speak to all and for all on matters
concerning the whole state without permission from officials who have been
put in authority over us without our consent, just as the landlord used to
appoint his bailiff without the consent of the peasants!

Justas the peasants were the slaves of the landlords, so the Russian
people are still the slaves of the officials. Just as the peasants lacked
civil freedom under the serf-owning system, so the Russian people still
lack political liberty. Political liberty means the freedom of
the people to arrange their public, state affairs. Political liberty means
the right of the people to elect their representatives (deputies) to a
State Duma (parliament). All laws should be discussed and passed, all
taxes should be fixed only by such a State Duma (parliament) elected by
the people them selves. Political liberty means the right of the people
themselves to choose all their officials, arrange all kinds of meetings
for the discussion of all state affairs, and publish whatever papers and
books they please, without having to ask for permission.

Allthe other European peoples won political liberty for themselves long
ago. Only in Turkey and in Russia are the people still politically
enslaved by the sultan’s government and by the tsarist autocratic
government. Tsarist autocracy means the unlimited power of the tsar. The
people have no voice in determining the structure of the state or in
running it. All laws are made and all officials are appointed
by the tsar alone, by his personal, unlimited, autocratic authority. But,
of course, the tsar cannot even know all Russian laws and all
Russian officials. The tsar cannot even know all that goes on in the
country. The tsar simply endorses the will of a few score of the richest
and most high-born officials. However much he may desire to, one man
cannot govern a vast country like Russia. It is not the tsar who governs
Russia—it is only a manner of speech to talk about autocratic,
one-man rule! Russia is governed by a handful of the richest and most
high-born officials. The tsar learns only what this handful are pleased to
tell him. The tsar cannot in any way go against the will of this handful
of high-ranking nobles: the tsar himself is a landlord and a member of the
nobility; since his earliest childhood he has lived only among these
high-born people; it was they who brought him up and educated him; he
knows about the Russian people as a whole only that which is known to
these noble gentry, these rich landlords, and the few very rich merchants
who are received at the tsar’s Court.

Inevery volost administration office you will find the same picture
hanging on the wall; it depicts the tsar (Alexander III, the father of the
present tsar) speaking to the volost headmen who have come to his
coronation. “Obey your Marshals of the Nobility!” the tsar
is ordering them. And the present tsar, Nicholas II, has repeated those
words. Thus, the tsars themselves admit that they can govern the country
only with the aid of the nobility and through the nobility. We must well
remember those words of the tsar’s about the peasants having to obey the
nobility. We must clearly understand what a lie is being told the people
by those who try to make out that tsarist government is the best form of
government. In other countries—those people say—the government
is elected; but it is the rich who are elected, and they govern unjustly
and oppress the poor. In Russia the government is not elected; an
autocratic tsar governs the whole country. The tsar stands above everyone,
rich and poor. The tsar, they tell us, is just to everyone, to the poor
and to the rich alike.

Suchtalk is sheer hypocrisy. Every Russian knows the kind of justice that
is dispensed by our government. Everybody knows whether a plain worker or
a farm labourer
in our country can become a member of the State Council. In all other
European countries, however, factory workers and farm-hands have been
elected to the State Duma (parliament); they have been able to speak
freely to all the people about the miserable condition of the workers, and
call upon the workers to unite and fight for a better life. And no one has
dared to stop these speeches of the people’s representatives; no policeman
has dared to lay a finger on them.

InRussia there is no elective government, and she is governed not merely
by the rich and the high-born, but by the worst of these. She is governed
by the most skilful intriguers at the tsar’s Court, by the most artful
tricksters, by those who carry lies and slanders to the tsar, and flatter
and toady to him. They govern in secret; the people do not and cannot know
what new laws are being drafted, what wars are being hatched, what new
taxes are being introduced, which officials are being rewarded and for
what services, and which are being dismissed. In no country is there such
a multitude of officials as in Russia. These officials tower above the
voiceless people like a dark forest—a mere worker can never make his
way through this forest, can never obtain justice. Not a single complaint
against bribery, robbery or abuse of power on the part of the officials is
ever brought to light; every complaint is smothered in official red
tape. The voice of the individual never reaches the whole people, but is
lost in this dark jungle, stifled in the police torture chamber. An army
of officials, who were never elected by the people and who are not
responsible to the people, has woven a thick web, and men and women are
struggling in this web like flies.

Tsaristautocracy is an autocracy of officials. Tsarist autocracy means
the feudal dependence of the people upon the officials and especially upon
the police. Tsarist autocracy is police autocracy.

Thatis why the workers come out into the streets with banners bearing the
inscriptions: “Down with the autocracy!”, “Long live political
liberty!” That is why the tens of millions of the rural poor must also
support and take up this battle-cry of the urban workers. Like them,
undaunted by persecution, fearless of the enemy’s threats and
violence, and undeterred by the first reverses, the agricultural labourers
and the poor peasants must come forward for a decisive struggle for the
freedom of the whole of the Russian people and demand first of all the
convocation of the representatives of the people. Let the people
themselves all over Russia elect their representatives (deputies). Let
those representatives form a supreme assembly, which will introduce
elective government in Russia, free the people from feudal dependence upon
the officials and the police, and secure for the people the right to meet
freely, speak freely, and have a free press!

Thatis what the Social-Democrats want first and fore most. That is the
meaning of their first demand: the demand for political liberty.

Weknow that political liberty, free elections to the State Duma
(parliament), freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, will not at once
deliver the working people from poverty and oppression. There is no means
of immediately delivering the poor of town and country from the burden of
working for the rich. The working people have no one to place their hopes
in and no one to rely upon but themselves. Nobody will free the
working man from poverty if he does not free himself. And to free
themselves the workers of the whole country, the whole of Russia, must
unite in one union, in one party. But millions of workers cannot unite if
the autocratic police government bans all meetings, all workers’
newspapers, and the election of workers’ deputies. To unite they must have
the right to form unions of every kind, must have freedom to unite; they
must enjoy political liberty.

Politicalliberty will not at once deliver the working people from
poverty, but it will give the workers a weapon with which to fight
poverty. There is no other means and there can be no other means of
fighting poverty except the unity of the workers themselves. But
millions of people cannot unite unless there is political
liberty.

Inall European countries where the people have won political liberty, the
workers began to unite long ago. Throughout the whole of Europe, workers
who own no land and no workshops, and work for other people for wages all
their lives are called proletarians. Over fifty years ago
the call was sounded for the working people to unite. “Workers of
all countries, unite!"—during the past fifty years these words
have circled the whole globe, are repeated at tens and hundreds of
thousands of workers’ meetings, and can be read in millions of
Social-Democratic pamphlets and newspapers in every language.

Ofcourse, to unite millions of workers in one union, in one party, is an
extremely difficult task; it requires time, persistence, perseverance, and
courage. The workers are ground down by poverty and want, benumbed by
cease less toil for the capitalists and landlords; often they have not
even the time to think of why they remain perpetual paupers, or how to be
delivered from this. Everything is done to prevent the workers from
uniting: either by means of direct and brutal violence, as in countries
like Russia where there is no political liberty, or by refusing to employ
workers who preach the doctrines of socialism, or, lastly, by means of
deceit and bribery. But no violence or persecution can stop the
proletarian workers from fighting for the great cause of the emancipation
of all working people from poverty and oppression. The number of
Social-Democratic workers is constantly growing. Take our neighbouring
country, Germany; there they have elective government. Formerly, in
Germany, too, there was an unlimited, autocratic, monarchist
government. But long ago, over fifty years ago, the German people
destroyed the, autocracy and won political liberty by force. In Germany
laws are not made by a handful of officials, as in Russia, but by an
assembly of people’s representatives, by a parliament, by the
Reichstag, as the Germans call it. All adult males take part in
electing deputies to this assembly. This makes it possible to count how
many votes were cast for the Social-Democrats. In 1887 one-tenth
of all votes were cast for the Social-Democrats. In 1898 (when the most
recent elections to the Reichstag took place) the Social-Democratic vote
increased nearly threefold. This time more than
one-fourth of all the votes were cast for the
Social-Democrats. Over two million adult males voted for
Social-Democratic candidates to parliament. Among the farm
labourers of Germany socialism is not yet widespread but it is now making
very rapid progress among them. And when the masses
of farm-hands, day laborers and poor, pauperised peasants unite with their
brothers in the towns, the German workers will win and establish an order
under which the working people will suffer neither poverty nor oppression.

Bywhat means do the Social-Democratic workers want to deliver the people
from poverty?

Toknow this, one must clearly understand the cause of the poverty of the
vast masses of the people under the present social order. Rich cities are
growing, magnificent shops and houses are being built, railways are being
constructed, all kinds of machines and improvements are being introduced
in industry and agriculture, but millions of people remain iii poverty,
and continue to work all their lives to provide a bare subsistence for
their families. That is not all: more and more people are becoming
unemployed. Both in town and country there are more and more people who
can find no work at all. In the villages they starve, while in the towns
they swell the ranks of the “tramps” and
“down-and-outs,” find refuge like beasts in dug-outs on the
outskirts of towns, or in dreadful slums and cellars, such as those in the
Khitrov Market in Moscow.

Whyis this? Wealth and luxury are increasing, and yet the millions and
millions who by their labour create all this wealth remain in poverty and
want! Peasants are dying of starvation, workers wander about without
employment, and yet merchants export millions of poods of grain from
Russia to foreign countries, factories are standing idle because the goods
cannot be sold, for there is no market for them!

Thecause of all this is, first of all, that most of the land, and also
the factories, workshops, machines, buildings, ships, etc., belong to a
small number of rich people. Tens of millions of people work on this land
and at these factories and workshops, but they are all owned by a few
thousand or tens of thousands of rich people, landlords, merchants, and
factory owners. The people work for those rich men for hire, for wages,
for a crust of bread. All that is produced over and above what is required
to provide a bare subsistence for the workers goes to the rich; this is
their profit, their “income.” All the benefits arising from the use
of machines and from improvements in methods
of production go to the landowners and capitalists: they accumulate wealth
untold, while the workers get only a miserable pittance. The workers are
brought together for work; on large estates and at big factories several
hundred and sometimes even several thousand workers are employed. When
labour is united in this way, and when the most diverse kinds of machines
are employed, work becomes more productive: one worker produces much more
than scores of workers did working separately and without the aid of
machines. But the benefits of this more productive labour go not to all
the working people, but to an insignificant number of big landowners,
merchants, and factory owners.

Oneoften hears it said that the landlords and merchants
“provide work” for the people, that they
“provide” the poor with earnings. It is said, for instance,
that a neighbouring factory or a neighbouring landlord
“maintains” the local peasants. Actually, however,
the workers by their labour maintain themselves and also all
those who do not work themselves. But for permission to work on
the landlord’s land, at a factory, or on a railway, the worker
gives the owner gratis all he produces, while the worker
himself gets only enough for a bare subsistence. Actually, therefore, it
is not the landlords and the merchants who give the workers employment,
but the workers who by their labour maintain everybody, surrendering
gratis the greater part of their labour.

Further.In all present-day states the people’s poverty is due to the fact
that the workers produce all sorts of articles for sale, for the
market. The factory owner and the artisan, the landlord and the well-to-do
peasant produce various goods, raise cattle, sow and harvest grain for
sale, in order to obtain money. Money has everywhere become
the ruling power. All the goods produced by human labour are exchanged for
money. With money you can buy anything. With money you can even buy a man,
that is to say, force a man who owns nothing to work for another who has
money. Formerly, land used to be the ruling power—that was the case
under the serf-owning system: whoever possessed land possessed power and
authority. Today, however, money, capital, has become the ruling
power. With money you can buy as much land as you like. Without money you
will
not be able to do much even if you have land: you must have money to buy a
plough or other implements, to buy livestock, to buy clothes and other
town-made goods, not to speak of paying taxes. For the sake of money
nearly all the landlords have mortgaged their estates to the banks. To get
money the government borrows from rich people and bankers all over the
world, and pays hundreds of millions of rubles yearly in interest on these
loans.

Forthe sake of money everyone today is waging a fierce war against
everyone else. Each tries to buy cheap and to sell dear, each tries to get
ahead of the other, to sell as many goods as possible, to undercut the
other, to conceal from him a profitable market or a profitable
contract. In this general scramble for money the little man, the petty
artisan or the small peasant, fares worse than all: he is always left
behind by the rich merchant or the rich peasant. The little man never has
any reserves; he lives from hand to mouth; each difficulty or accident
compels him to pawn his last belongings or to sell his livestock at a
trifling price. Once he has fallen into the clutches of a kulak or of a
usurer he very rarely succeeds in escaping from the net, and in most cases
he is utterly ruined. Every year tens and hundreds of thousands of small
peasants and artisans lock up their cottages, surrender their holdings to
the commune gratis and become wageworkers, farm-hands, unskilled
workers, proletarians. But the rich grow richer and richer in this
struggle for money. They pile up millions and hundreds of millions of
rubles in the banks and make profit not only with their own money, but
also with the money deposited in the banks by others. The little man who
deposits a few score or a few hundred rubles in a bank or a savings-bank
receives interest at the rate of three or four kopeks to the ruble; but
the rich make millions out of these scores and use these millions to
increase their turnover and make ten and twenty kopeks to the ruble.

Thatis why the Social-Democratic workers say that the only way to put an
end to the poverty of the people is to change the existing order from top
to bottom, throughout the country, and to establish a socialist
order, in other words, to take the estates from the big landowners,
the
factories from the factory owners, and money capital from the bankers, to
abolish their private property and turn it over to the whole
working people throughout the country. When that is done the workers’
labour will be made use of not by rich people living on the labour of
others, but by the workers themselves and by those elected by them. The
fruits of common labour and the advantages from all improvements and
machinery will then benefit all the working people, all the
workers. Wealth will then grow at a still faster rate because the workers
will work better for them selves than they did for the capitalists; the
working day will be shorter; the workers’ standard of living will be
higher; all their conditions of life will be completely changed.

Butit is not an easy matter to change the existing order throughout the
country. That requires a great deal of effort, a long and stubborn
struggle. All the rich, all the property-owners, all the
bourgeoisie[1]
will defend their riches with all their might. The officials and the army
will rise to defend all the rich class, because the government it
self is in the hands of the rich class. The workers must rally as one man
for the struggle against all those who live on the labour of others; the
workers themselves must unite and help to unite all the poor in a single
working class, in a single proletarian class. The
struggle will not be easy for the working class, but it will certainly end
in the workers’ victory because the bourgeoisie, or those who live on the
labour of others, are an insignificant minority of the population, while
the working class is the vast majority. The workers against the
property-owners means millions against thousands.

Theworkers in Russia are already beginning to unite for this great
struggle in a single workers’ Social-Democratic Party. Difficult as it is
to unite in secret, hiding from the police, nevertheless, the organisation
is growing and gaining strength. When the Russian people have won
political liberty, the work of uniting the working class, the cause of
socialism, will advance much more rapidly, more rapidly than it is
advancing among the German workers.

Notes

[1]
Bourgeois means a property-owner. The bourgeoisie are all the
property-owners taken together. A big bourgeois is the owner of big
property. A petty bourgeois is the owner of small property. The words
bourgeoisie and proletariat mean the same as property-owners and workers,
the rich and the poor, or those who live on the labour of others end those
who work for others for wages.
—Lenin